A Guide To Planning and Implementing a Paperless Office System
Contents
Introduction
Whether you are talking paperless office for
accountants, paperless office for lawyers or paperless office for other
businesses, it is much easier to make a paperless office run more
efficiently than it was just a few years ago.
How To Setup A "Paperless"
Office -- You Can Do It and Save Money is a book in
Acrobat's PDF format that will guide you through the steps to get your
paperless office running efficiently. Your business will save money with
reduced storage costs. You will find things faster with your paperless
office. Setting up a paperless office can be done easily and inexpensively
when you use this guide.
What You Will Learn:
- The
three phases to get your paperless office up and running. Detailed
step by step instructions for each phase.
- 35
specific Tips to make your paperless office run smooth.
-
14
Traps that are guaranteed to frustrate your paperless office.
- Six
paperless office conversion success stories.
- How
to cross reference Excel spread sheets.
- How
to get the most out of Adobe Acrobat.
- What
scanner(s) to buy and where to put them.
- Wireless
network and laptop security warnings and solutions.
- What
to do with the paper documents already in your files. Make the wrong
decision and you will regret going paperless.
- How
to organize your hard drive, server and folders for maximum
convenience and efficiency.
- The
Pros and Cons of using an integrated system.
- What
to do with the “paper trail.”
- How
to backup for maximum safety and convenience.
- How
to prevent old computers from giving up business secrets.
- What
to look for in new computer systems.
- How
to determine if your existing systems will work for a paperless
office.
- How
to set up folders on your hard drive.
- How
to use shortcuts and desktop icons effectively.
- Paperless
office software recommendations.
- How
to add increased security to folders or directories.
- And
many more time and money saving tips.
Use this inexpensive guide to avoid the hundreds, probably
thousands, of dollars that an integrated paperless office or paperless
engagement system would cost. Use How To Setup A “Paperless” Office
as your manual for a reasonably priced system.
FREE TIP: When
starting a paperless system, think twice before scanning all your old
paper documents. If the old paper documents are scheduled to be
destroyed sometime in the future, only scan documents that are used
frequently. Do scan old paper documents that are permanent in nature.
Learn how using the right file naming system can be the key to
solving document retention issues. Keeping obsolete files can bloat the
hard drive and even lead to legal issues.
If you need to
make copies of documents in your files, a paperless system is much faster
than hunting for documents, removing staples, copying and re-stapeling.
You can easily search your paperless office documents the same way
that you would search the Web. This guide shows you how.
Included with this guide:
FREE:
An Excel tickmark template.
FREE: A
Word point sheet template.
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What People Say
About "How To Setup A Paperless Office"
"'How To Setup A Paperless Office' was the most useful
information in guiding us to paperless. It was a sensible, practical,
extremely cost effective way to get all the information necessary to make
wise purchasing and set up decisions. We saved thousands if not tens of
thousands of dollars by implementing recommendations.
Paul Traynor, Singer, Traynor & Co., Los Angeles, CA
“As
a small office I felt that we were going into this project blind because
we didn’t want to spend the money for the systems designed for larger
offices. Your guide has so much information, I know we can get off to a
good start now.”
Karen
Johnson, Anderson Arritt, CPAs, Burley, ID
“It
was very well done – very comprehensive and right on target.”
Gary
Danca, Wilson Miller, Inc., Naples, FL
"Well
done. I read through your guide today and think you did a very nice job.
(I’m biased as you wrote the manual for the system I have been following
for the last year or so!)"
Thomas Donovan, The Donovan Company, Newport Beach, CA
Hear what
other customers are saying...
The Document Retention Problem Caused By
Obsolete Files
An accumulation of obsolete files can clog a paperless
office system. Here is an easy solution:
- Include the deletion date in the
filename when the file is created. Example, file "ltr
to mom 02-15-2003 del-02-15-2004.doc"
will no longer be needed after 02-15-2004. Remember, the time when a
file is created is the best time to decide when the file should be
deleted.
- Periodically, go through your files
looking for out of date files. This can be a task. The
DTS File Butler™ can do
this automatically every night for you.
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Digital Filing System Components:
Scanners:
List & Discount Prices
Digital to Digital:
Adobe Acrobat
Almost everyone is familiar with using the
Acrobat Reader which is free. The Acrobat Reader reads PDF, portable
document files.
To create an Acrobat PDF file, print to the
Acrobat Distiller or Acrobat Writer instead of printing to a printer.
Thus, if you want to make a searchable copy of Jane Doe's tax return, if
you have Acrobat, print to the Acrobat Distiller instead of the laser
printer. Acrobat, not to be confused with the Acrobat Reader, is not
free, but is reasonably priced.
Scanned Digital to Digital:
This takes the information from the scanner
and creates a searchable PDF file.
Our favorite for small to medium sized
offices:
FineReader
Pro (single machine). It is our experience that this is better than
the software that comes with the scanner. We have seen comments that
FineReader is better than the more expensive OmniPage.
FineReader
Office (multiple machines). It is our experience that this is better
than the software that comes with the scanner. We have seen comments that
FineReader
Pro is better than the more expensive OmniPage.
Very large volumes of scanning:
Acrobat
Capture
ScanSoft's
OmniPage (this will replace TextBridge). We have heard souces say that
FineReader
Pro is better.
Personal scanning or where security is not an
issue:
PaperPort
Deluxe
Security Software
For small offices Norton
Internet Security includes editor's choice Norton Antivirus and Norton
Personal Firewall.
Norton
Antivirus is an excellent antivirus program for small businesses.
Zonealarm
is an excellent software firewall.
For larger offices consider Norton
Antivirus Corporate Edition (26-50 users) or (up
to 25 users) for antivirus protection.
Revisions
Last revised 4/28/2003. Previous purchasers
can use the password that was emailed to them to install
pap0310pw.exe (1,015KB). The download
should take about 5 - 10 minutes at 56K. One of the files that installs is
Additions2003-04-28.pdf which lists the changes from the previous version.
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